May I offer a suggestion. Expressions like: 'Lewis Lead Remover', 'JB Bore Paste', and 'Sweet's 7.62 Solvent', or good old stinky, 'Hoppe's #9 Bore Cleaning Solvent' all scare me!
If I went backwards, say, 30 years in my life, yes indeed, there was a time when I used these sorts of chemicals on my firearms; but, maybe, I finally got lucky. Maybe some of the older shooters in the various gun clubs I belonged to somehow managed to get through to me.
Today I carefully pretreat all of my bores with Sentry Solutions, '
Smooth-Kote' before shooting them. This stuff really works; and it makes bore cleanup a (literal) breeze!
General thoughts on this topic:
1. I've got two cans of Gunslick, 'Foaming Bore Cleaner' sitting on my bench. It works, but rather weakly; and, truthfully, I don't really like it and won't buy it again.
2. If you use a cleaner like Ballistol, or Break-Free CLP, then, the best results will always come after allowing your barrel to soak in it, overnight, before you start any serious cleaning.
3. I have never found any bore cleaning product that works better than Flitz Metal Polish. Other shooters used to caution me that Flitz would quickly wear out my barrels; but, in more than 15 years of using it, I've yet to see any evidence of this happening; and continued accuracy is right where I'd expect it to be. I love using Flitz! It's fast; it's relatively safe; it works very well; and it gets my bores spotlessly clean.
4. The best way to clean any bore over .22 caliber is to: LOSE THE SLOTTED-TIP, AND/OR JAG! Instead of using these antiquated devices wrap the cotton patches around the cleaning brush's head, instead. Then, use your proprioceptive reflexes to set up a rapid, 'all the way through, and all the way back' scrubbing motion in and out of the barrel.
I coat my patches in Flitz Metal Polish and change them after a dozen, or so, passes and/or after a discolored patch really starts to get black. (A black patch will still clean!) Three patches should get rid of most of the, 'heavy stuff'; and, afterwards, start cleaning up with dry white patches. (When they start coming out either light gray, or white, you're done!)
5. Do not oil the bore! Use Smooth-Kote, instead. (Sometimes I'll swab down a barrel with isopropyl alcohol before applying Smooth-Kote.)
A Smooth-Kote treated bore will clean up in less than half the time of an untreated bore. Yes, Smooth-Kote contains Molybdenum Disulfide; but it is, also, (what the manufacturer calls) 'passivated'; and it is NOT even the least bit hygroscopic BEFORE the gun is fired.
After the gun is fired? I don't know; but I always clean my guns within 24 hours after using them; so I have very little experience with moisture contamination inside a dirty barrel.
I've had several EDC barrels that I've treated with Smooth-Kote and carried for up to 4 months, sometimes in high humidity, before I finally used the gun. So far the bores have required no additional attention from me, and have remained in perfect condition.
(There's a treated G-19 on my desk, right now, as I type. Which reminds me: You'll also get a lot less friction working against your bullets when you fire, too.)
6. I always wear either Nitrile, or Latex gloves whenever I'm cleaning a gun; and I try very hard not to use any gun cleaner that is unmistakably carcinogenic like either flavor of automotive brake cleaner, or Eezox; or either the old, or the new formulations of Birchwood-Casey's, 'Gun Scrubber'.
At this stage of life I'm too old to play around with any of this stuff; and I keep all of it away from contact with either my skin, or my nose. I do a lot of gun cleaning; and I know, 'How' to keep a barrel spotlessly clean. For whatever it's worth, I've just shared many of my own cleaning 'answers' with the other members of this gun board.
